RELIGION AND THE INTELLECTUALS
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realm of personality, which is independent of time, and strictly
speaking, religious. Now though I stated at the outset that I find
all such separations of man from nature repugnant, at times I am
myself drawn to this view. It is such a perfect refuge from the en–
croachment of the world, that is to say, from politics. The tyranny
of the state, when I fear it most, seems to call for such a separation.
There is the sense of the state closing in, confusing innocence and
guilt, good and evil, devouring the world and the little space in it in
which I have hoped to lodge my personal independence, and hoped
that my children will be able to secure theirs. At such times this
position is very attractive, I feel the urge to cry, "I am not wholly of
this world."
But at other times, when the fear is gone, I see that what I have
regarded as refuge is merely uplift, and that I have no refuge apart
from the satisfaction of my desires-and this is no refuge but an
open, vulnerable, commitment to life. But I have an urge to live and
I come alive, my work goes well, I feel love, and this little space of
personal freedom fills the world. Now this is no more a solution
to the problem of the state than Berdyaev's separation from nature;
politics is politics, no matter where you stand. But it does seem to
me to solve problems of religion. To the extent that my own life
is unimpeded in the satisfaction of desire (I am not speaking of a
happy life, only of a deep one), to that extent the formulations of
religion fall away, with the need for refuge and consolation, and
I
am not religious. The exact motion
is
that of a see-saw, and its only
honest representation in words is through dialogue. But halt the
ascent of the see-saw at its highest point-what I find then is the
ideal which I would oppose to the personalistic ideal, or any other
that demands separation from nature. It is the ideal of natural ful–
filment, of the self-regulative ordering of values (in societies as well
as individuals) where values offer themselves of their own accord
in the experience of life, without residuum in some other world. Call
this ideal, if you must, religious. But then to all the intellectuals who
are crying, back to religion! you must say, "0 ye of little faith."
Naturalism is meaningless without such direct experiencing of
values; it is meaningless so long as the religious definition of value,
involving separation from nature, has meaning. All the extensions
of religion into other spheres, into morality, the regulation of con-
